April 2, 2001 - 18:52 AMT
ISMAIL CEM REMINDS IF HIS PROPOSAL OF ARMENIAN-TURKISH-AZERBAIJANI MEETING
YEREVAN, April 2. /Mediamax/. The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Ismail Cem said that his proposal of meeting of Turkish, Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers is still valid.
Commenting for the Anatolian news agency on the meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents in Florida, he said that the possible agreement shouldn't result in a new instability because if this is the case, the entire Caucasus would be negatively affected from that.
The Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian said on 24 February that Armenia "took with interest" the proposal of the Turkish Foreign Minister to hold trilateral Armenian-Azeri-Turkish meeting. When asked by Mediamax on Feb.19 to comment on Cem's proposal press secretary of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Dzyunik Aghajanian said that considering the absence of any diplomatic relations between Armenian and Turkey, as well as Turkey's biased position in the Karabakh problem settlement, Ankara couldn't be a mediator in this process.
On March 20 the official representative of the U.S. State Department Richard Boucher said that Turkey was not one of the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, and it didn't have a mediating role in the conflict.--0--